Presentation Mastery: Frighteningly Scary Stuff

On this day after Halloween, here are 10 boo-boo’s that are guaranteed to scare any audience:

1. Start your presentation by apologizing: I’m sorry I didn’t have time to fully prepare today…
2. Point to a slide filled with numbers and say: I know you can’t see this in the back…
3. Read your slides, that everyone can clearly see, out loud – or even worse – make a participant read them.
4. Hold your audience hostage by going overtime and not making it easy for them to escape.
5. Make fun of an audience member or bring attention to him or her in any way that makes that person feel, uncomfortably, the center of attention.
6. Tell an audience member that he or she is wrong (see #5): No, that isn’t right.

7. Be boring, unprepared, pompous, patronizing or egotistical.
8. Stand in front of the LCD light so the words flash across your chest. Be totally unaware that you’re doing it.
9. Stand behind the lectern and hold on to it with a death grip of fear.
10. Make the presentation about what matters to you instead of to the people in the seats.